WILL PERCEPTION BECOME REALITY?

Recently, we argued that there will always be a need for a specialist advocacy branch of the legal profession (see [2002] Gazette, 17 January, 14).The bar in its current form will not disappear overnight, despite the number of solicitor-advocates and barristers joining law firms.This week, however, fusion will be raised again, as a result of a move by the Bar Council.

In response to last year's report from the Director-General of Fair Trading, it has proposed to widen the group of lay clients with direct access to barristers.The bar has rejected suggestions that it also lift its ban on barrister partnerships, and allow barristers to conduct litigation.

It remains to be seen whether the director-general, John Vickers, will press the bar further on those points.

However, it likely that the public will find it increasingly difficult to differentiate between what solicitors and barristers do.

For many lay clients, once the bar has amended its rules, only the functions of litigation and the holding of clients' funds will separate the branches.For the public, those are elusive subtleties; it may be only a matter of time before a perceived fused profession is fusion in reality.